fairies are pretty interesting, and the real legends of redcaps and such can be quite monstrous. I think that while it's probably easy to dismiss these things as being totally archaic beliefs, it would be good to recognize some people really do believe in fairy tails today, literally, and historically the beliefs have had huge power.

Plus it's always interesting to me how much these tales line up with the tails of modern crypt-ids.

munsterspeek wrote:fairies are pretty interesting, and the real legends of redcaps and such can be quite monstrous. I think that while it's probably easy to dismiss these things as being totally archaic beliefs, it would be good to recognize some people really do believe in fairy tails today, literally, and historically the beliefs have had huge power.

Plus it's always interesting to me how much these tales line up with the tails of modern crypt-ids.

Indeed, fascinating mythology.

My favourite is "The Cottingley Fairies" hoax in which thousands of people believed at the time,including Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. (photo of fairies with link)

The Cottingley Fairies appear in a series of five photographs taken by Elsie Wright and Frances Griffiths, two young cousins who lived in Cottingley, near Bradford in England. In 1917, when the first two photographs were taken, Elsie was 16 years old and Frances was 10. The pictures came to the attention of writer Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, who used them to illustrate an article on fairies he had been commissioned to write for the Christmas 1920 edition of The Strand Magazine. Conan Doyle, as a spiritualist, was enthusiastic about the photographs, and interpreted them as clear and visible evidence of psychic phenomena. Public reaction was mixed; some accepted the images as genuine, but others believed they had been faked.

There are a lot of benefits of fairy tales in early childhood development. It only becomes a problem when adults cannot let go of their favorite fairies and childhood fantasies. So instead of them being creative outlets they become morbid obsessions.The question is, are these childhood excursions into fantasy land worse than the adult obsession developed from other sources which are more violent and destructive in nature?